172 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 



ers, as if it were lightning, and they knew it; they 

 dropped their oars, and silently returned to the shore. 

 Mike waved his hand towards the little village of Louis- 

 ville, and again pursued his way. 



The time consumed by the firing of Mike's rifle, the 

 pursuit, and the abandonment of it, required less time 

 than we have taken to give the details ; and in that time, 

 to the astonishment of the gaping crowd around Joe, 

 they saw him rising with a bewildered air ; a moment 

 more — he recovered his senses and stood up — at his 

 feet lay his scalp-lock ! 



The ball had cut it clear from his head ; the cord 

 around the root, in which were placed feathers and other 

 ornaments, still held it together ; the concussion had 

 merely stunned its owner ; farther — he had escaped all 

 bodily harm ! A cry of exultation rose at the last evi- 

 dence of the skill of Mike Fink — the exhibition of a 

 shot that established his claim, indisputabl}', to the emi- 

 nence he ever afterwards held — that of the unrivalled 

 marksman of all the flatboatmen of the western waters. 



Proud Joe had received many insults. He looked 

 upon himself as a degraded, worthless being — and the 

 ignominy heaped upon him he never, except by reply, 

 resented ; but this last insult was like seizing the lion 

 by the mane, or a Roman senator by the beard — it 

 roused the slumbering demon within, and made him 

 again thirst to resent his wrongs, with an intensity of 

 emotion that can only be felt by an Indian. His eye 



